The article I'm about to link to, by Oliver Reichenstein, is pretty terrible, but it's a good way for me to bring up something I've been meaning to talk about. First, the article: "Apple has been working on its file system and with iOS it had almost killed the concept of folders - before reintroducing them with a peculiar restriction: only one level! With Mountain Lion it brings its one folder level logic to OSX. What could be the reason for such a restrictive measure?" So, where does this crusade against directory structures (not file systems, as the article aggravatingly keeps stating) come from?

I have a few questions regarding this new Document Library thing :
- It seems to still allow folders (would be a fucking huge mess otherwise), but only one level. This seems really dumb. Like if you keep your contracts or receipts, it makes a *lot* of sense to have a contracts folder and inside it at least one folder per year (and maybe then per-month).
- How does it handle files that can be used by multiple apps : html, photos/images, etc... ?

Oh and I think I've never heard anybody complain about how having folders is hard. I think it's one of the easiest computing concept to understand for non-tech people. It's actually like in real life. You'll have a shelf with a "receipt" folder and then in it you'll have on folder per year or whatever.

Now, I'm all for adding tagging and metadata capabilities to filesystem with a nice UI so you can easily have a file in multiple folders and search/filter them more easily. But removing the whole folder concept seems really dumb.

People don't have problems with hierarchical directory structures that they create themselves (like in their own home folder or 'My Documents' directory).

However, a lot of people have problems when they find themselves in another directory on the disk/system/network, and don't know how to get back to their stuff. And Microsoft has been making this harder and harder with each release of Windows, with Libraries being the epitome of 'hide things behind abstractions so that no one knows where things are actually stored'.

No one had issues with directories in MS-DOS. No one had issues with directories in Windows 3.x. Things got a little confusing with Windows 95 and the introduction of 'My Documents'. then things stayed 'normal' throu Win 98, ME, and XP. things moved with Vista. Then, suddenly things went wonkers with Win 7 where everything that was under My Documents was moved up a level, Libraries were added, and things just got confusing.

But, the real confusion started with the introduction of 'Desktop' as a magical pseudo-top level directory, which is actually in the middle of the file system. We'd all be so much better off if that was never introduced, and everyone had to deal with the actual layout on the disk for everything. I believe that's the root of all the 'issues' with confusion with directories.

"However, a lot of people have problems when they find themselves in another directory on the disk/system/network, and don't know how to get back to their stuff."

You hit the nail on the head. In fact this is one of the best points that's been brought up; users can obviously understand their own directory structures. The main aspect that might be genuinely confusing is being exposed to rather arbitrary and scary system directories (including C:\ on windows).

"And Microsoft has been making this harder and harder with each release of Windows, with Libraries being the epitome of 'hide things behind abstractions so that no one knows where things are actually stored'."

It is hard to use because it lacks consistency and solid points of reference. Windows puts system directories at the root, but that's not what a user wants to see. From a user standpoint, the root directory should be initially empty and take on whatever files / hierarchy the user creates there.

The system files, nor their associated hierarchy should ever need to be displayed to normal users. Placing users at the root (even if only a virtual root) makes it that much harder to get genuinely lost since users would be intimately familiar with their root directories.

Novice users needn't be intimidated by any pre-existing system hierarchy, advanced users should be able to override the configuration, and everyone should be able to work with directories & archives without any silly device directory limitations.

Of course for any paradigm to be successful it must be adhered to consistently in software, which is far easier to do with a new platform than an existing one.